


Pictures on Silence

by theskywasblue



Category: Ouran High School Host Club
Genre: Denial, F/M, M/M, Music, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regret is a series of soft chords.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures on Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sharpeslass](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sharpeslass).



> For the prompt: Kyoya/Haruhi - voyeurism

He is sitting at the piano, straight-backed, but slightly off-center on the bench, hands in his lap, not clasped, but one carefully atop the other like an exercise in self-restraint. His shoulders are tense, though his expression -- what can be seen of it -- is the same as always: purposefully composed, with just the shadow of a frown on the edge of his lips.

Haruhi counts thirty seconds, then sixty, and watches Kyoya breathe. Just as she is about to move forward --through the curtain to ask Kyoya if he’s alright or maybe why he’s there all by himself, like a sentinel at the piano when he should probably be in class -- Kyoya moves, exhaling a long breath, raising one hand, and pressing down a single key.

The note reverberates through the empty room. Haruhi’s breath catches in delicate counterpoint and the curtains whisper as if the sound has a physical form that brushes against them. The note grows softer and softer, spreading out like the ripples left behind when a stone is dropped into a pond.

Haruhi waits to see if he will play something, if Kyoya has a secret talent with the piano the same way that Tamaki does; but Kyoya only picks a few more notes at random -- not even playing the basic scales which even Haruhi herself has learned at Tamaki’s playful urging -- each time he waits for the note to fade before picking another, as if each has its own importance.

Finally he lays his hands atop the keys, without the proper weight to depress them and create sound, and lets out a long sigh.

“Kyoya-sempai?”

He jumps. The piano produces half a dozen dissonant notes in broken harmony with the sound of legs of the piano bench dragging across the floor. Haruhi winces, wants to shrink behind the curtain at the look on Kyoya’s face, even though she doesn’t really understand what the expression means.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” The words come out as painful to the ear as a sharp note played in place of a flat. Behind his glasses, Kyoya’s eyes are as hard as flint.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“Nothing to disturb.” Kyoya shuts the lid on the piano, pushes the bench back into place. “It’s not as if I play.”

Something like regret overlays his words like a series of low, soft chords.

“Well maybe...” Haruhi pushes the hair back out of her eyes and steps beyond the curtain, looking at her shoes for a moment before the thoughts all come together in her head, “If you wanted to learn, Tamaki-sempai could teach you?”

Kyoya walks right past her, sweeps the curtain aside and steps though, not even looking back over his shoulder as he says, “Don’t ever tell Tamaki you had such a foolish idea.”

The door to the music room shuts with a sharp snick, and Haruhi stands for a moment alone in the oppressive silence before walking over to the piano. She runs her fingertips over the delicate engraving on the cover before lifting it by its tiny gold handles. It slides out of the way without resistance, unveiling the keys. Knowing the quality of nearly everything at Ouran Academy, Haruhi suspects they might even be real ivory. She lets her fingers skim across their perfect smoothness without pressing down and they seem unusually warm to the touch.

She wonders how long Kyoya sat there before she came into the room, how long it took him to work up the courage to make those careful sounds he seemed to savour.

When Haruhi herself finally applies pressure to the keys so that the wooden hammers strike the carefully tuned strings inside, each note sounds like one of longing.

-End-


End file.
